Topic: God was behind Big Bang, universe no accident: Pope

[shelverton.]

Hmm..
Dinosaurs roamed the earth for 165 000 000 years straight. Man has been around for, what, 300 000 years tops? What makes us think that we're so friggin important and that a God has chosen us to "rule" this planet? I very much doubt that humans will be around for millions of years to come. We'll be completely overshadowed by the dinosaurs in terms of significance to the history of earth. I just don't think we're important in the greater scheme of things. We're an insignificant, very temporary race that will either destroy this planet during our lifetime or be surpassed by other creatures in the future. So no, I don't believe in God. I hope I'm wrong though. It would be cool if there was some purpose to it all...

EDIT:
I hope no one found this post offensive or something.. It wasn't my intention anyway, but maybe it came out a bit blunt... well well, each to their own

[crisis]

What if there are other species of humans in the universe...?


lets not even open that can of worms, lol. The rabbit hole goes soo deep, shelv ~_~

[shelverton.]

What if there are other species of humans in the universe...?


lets not even open that can of worms, lol. The rabbit hole goes soo deep, shelv ~_~

 

*puts lid back on can*

It's an interesting topic though, and the universe in particular interests me greatly. When I was little I wanted to become an astronomer, but life had other plans for me

[Evil_Tim]

We'll be completely overshadowed by the dinosaurs in terms of significance to the history of earth.

Yes, I mean look at the achievements of the dinosaurs compared to our art, mathematics, poetry, science...

Erm, some of their shit fossilised.

Yeah.

Duration and significance aren't the same thing. That's why Michael Bay's Pearl Harbour isn't a more significant movie than Citizen Kane.

[shelverton.]

Yes, I mean look at the achievements of the dinosaurs compared to our art, mathematics, poetry, science...

Erm, some of their shit fossilised.

Yeah.

Duration and significance aren't the same thing. That's why Michael Bay's Pearl Harbour isn't a more significant movie than Citizen Kane.

I may have used the word "significance" wrong here. English is not my first language, but I try

Those are achievements to us, yes. Things that we, humans, understand in our minuscule corner of the universe. Of course you think it's the greatest thing that ever happened. You are, after all human and probably think that you're the most important thing there ever was. There is however no proof that they mean anything at all, in the greater scheme of things. No more than fossilised dinosaur poop.

I think duration is more important when looking at the history of the universe. In the highly unlikely event of someone from the future would summarize life on planet earth in one sentence, it would probably be less "That planet where humans lived" and more "That planet which was dead most of the time, but had dinosaurs on it at one point". Unless, of course we go on living for billions of years. So yeah, duration matters more in my opinion.

[Evil_Tim]

Yes, but on the other hand, what did the dinosaurs do? They walked around, ate a lot, and died. This largely does not distinguish them from any form of life that preceded or superceded them. We're the only ones who have this whole technology and intelligence business going on, which makes us unique from all those who have come before us. So if you were summing up in one sentence, you'd stay it was that place where stuff lived, and one particular kind of stuff that lived was remarkably smarter and more resourceful than all the other stuff put together.

Or you'd say "that planet with the nematode worms" since they kind of beat everything else in existence when it comes to being successful.

[Mooning Freddy]

What if there are other species of intelligent lifeforms in the universe...?
Lets not even open that can of worms, lol. The rabbit hole goes soo deep, shelv ~_~

Why not, man?

I would really like to believe there are. I mean, if you believe that life on this planet was formed by sheer coincidence, doesn't it makes sense that in our (nearly) infinite universe, there is a galaxy very similar to the solar system, where there's a planet just like Earth, and by total coincidence, life has been formed there as well?
If a person believes in aliens, is that a reason to ridicule him? I don't think so. In fact, the existence of other intelligent life forms, maybe not here but in a faraway galaxy, sounds very logical to me.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

In the timeline of an universe (or, even more appropriately, a Multiverse), we're just as miniscule as the dinosaurs, and everything that we create will erode over time.  A passersby 100,000,000 years from now may visit and, in the best outcome, may find us or descendants of us, but it is likely they will not find anything at all, 'cept maybe some ruins... and even those will have eroded and have been destroyed by then.

There's a TV program "Life After People", which postulates that, if humans were to disappear from Earth for whatever reason (a hypothetical scenario, for the sake of simplicity, is that we just vanished for no reason) shows that it would take barely 500 years or so for nature to completely overshadow, erode, corrode, and destroy any semblance of our oh-so-mighty civilization.  Even the satellites we have orbiting our planet would become nothing more than shooting stars, exploding and disintegrating as they plummet into our atmosphere.

So no, we're really not significant.  Our human egotistical brain forces us to think we're hot shit (and, comparatively, right now we are, since there's no opposing might to our intellect and behavior anywhere we've looked), but our legacy is looking bleaker and bleaker as we continue to live in this planet and destroying it as a result.  It will get the last laugh, eventually.

I'm in the camp that believes that in such a huge ocean of an universe, our solar system is but one tiny molecule in it.  The chances of there being other life forms, with higher intelligence and more accomplishments done in their racial lifetime is likely to be far greater... but they would be too distant from us for us to have ever known them.  Without the ability to travel great distances in a short time (which would require the bending of the laws of physics, a theme bordering more on science fiction than science fact, but not implausable or impossible given what little we know), it is unlikely that we will ever meet them.  It is also unlikely that they would care to meet us.  After all, they have their own problems.  

I would imagine that if such races exist, their concern on an Universal Scale is the same as ours: When the planet is on its last legs, what will they be able to do, to survive?  The sun's power is not infinite, plus any incoming big Solar Flare can potentially destroy us by the time we're even able to see it coming.  An asteroid may show up any minute now, and we currently do not have the abilities to move it out of its trajectory.  Those are the biggest threats to Human Existence right now.  We've just been in a optimal position and have the laws of probability on our side, and have been quite fortunate.

It is possible that we're all just dust specs inside a collector's jar, too.

God? He may very well exist, and we're one of his pet project.  We could be code in someone's computer program, a set of binomes in a giant mainframe (ha ha! Reboot).  We could, however, be very small.

It's a big big universe, and we're all really puny,
we're just tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney.

Then again maybe this 'deity' is just a scientist with 8 eyes who's made us in a giant pitri dish and is watching to see when we end up killing ourselves.  All of these are perfectly plausable theories.  We just don't know.  And I really think we should stop kidding ourselves and thinking we're so high and mighty.  Cockroaches and Rats may outlive us... and they can survive even cosmic collisions (well, maybe not the rats).  


Ha ha!  Existentialism.

[Evil_Tim]

Or, at the other end of the scale, everything could just be a figment of my imagination, in which case the dinosaurs are completely unimportant because I'm the only thing that exists anyway.

Also, IIRC that series said the faces on Mount Rushmore would last thousands of years barring a major geological event, and the same for NORAD and several other things.

[crisis]

Well... I believe we have been visited, and I only said lets not open this worm can becuz it really deserves it's own topic/thread altogether. If the public really knew what was going on on this planet, then I doubt we'd be arguing petty stuff like vampires & castles lol


Here's some food for thought

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJoAMlP0G28

[thernz]

i believe in stargate

[JR]

I believe in Crystal Light, because I believe in me.

Oops, wait...

In a way, I'm surprised and not surprised about the pope's announcement. It seems like another logical step towards the Catholic church's adjustment of its beliefs to the modern world. In high school, I was taught how the creation story of Adam & Eve was really just a story meant to simplify the origin of man, and nothing else. I was kind of shocked to learn that the story of creation wasn't taken literally by the church anymore (yeah, I know).

But I'm still kind of surprised how a viewpoint like that could progress to (at least) the pope publicly believing in a divine Big Bang Theory in such a relatively short amount of time. I dunno, seems kind of weird to me.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

It's taken literally by a few weird religions, usually of the Protestant Type.
I love the way Robin Williams put it (Roll it, skip to 2:30 minutes):
Robin Williams on Religion

[thernz]

But I'm still kind of surprised how a viewpoint like that could progress to (at least) the pope publicly believing in a divine Big Bang Theory in such a relatively short amount of time. I dunno, seems kind of weird to me.

According to Wikipedia,

Pope Pius XII, declared at the November 22, 1951 opening meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that the Big Bang theory accorded with the Catholic concept of creation

So, hey, even shorter!

[JR]

So then Benedict announcing this was pretty pointless, huh?